(09-20-2017, 05:27 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Speaking of conservatives -- the Party once associated with political and economic conservatism used to be for small-scale government and against debt. They thought competition adequate for economic justice. They believed in rational thought and expected it to overpower superstition and ignorance because of the advantages of objective learning. There would be room for big as well as small players in the economy. Now the last two 'conservative' Presidents stand for monopoly, debt as a generator of income and a promoter of consumerism, and heavy involvement of the government in private-public partnerships -- guaranteed profits to gougers with high costs for us all to bear.

The way you speak I'm pretty sure you're stuck in some sort of time warp where the Trump hostile take over of the GOP never happened. Of course this could just be a canned response you've been dishing out since the 90s.

Trump won an unexpected victory, is under investigation for collusion with an adversarial foreign power and has no governing philosophy I can discern. In what way is that a dominant position in the long term? That said, ,the Dems are splashing around and clueless, so we have no solid party at the moment.

Let's see how this plays out. I doubt 2018 will be a tide-turning event, so it's all about 2020.

1. The only people who didn't expect Trump's victory were those who claimed he had no chance at winning. I had been watching him since the mid 00's, and since 2000 since he explored running with the Reform Party of Ross Perot fame. You know, people also said Reagan wouldn't ever be president either. And as much as I don't care much for Reagan he has to be the one President worth a damn in my lifetime whose name isn't Donald John Trump.

2. That investigation is going to yield nothing, and the other party always investigates a president of the opposite party for something. Maybe you have short-term memory loss or something but there were plans afoot to investigate and impeach Bush II, and Obama, and Bill Clinton (who was impeached but nothing came of it). Sounds like business as usual to me on that front.

3. I you think he doesn't have a governing ideology then you've not been paying attention, or worse you've been swallowing whole all the nonsense that the lugenpresse puts out. Trump is governed by two things: American Civic Nationalism, pragmatism.

As for 2020 I expect him winning in a landslide unless he's murdered. I'm far more concerned about the Deep State taking him out like they did with JFK. Fortunately it isn't 1963 anymore and they are less free to act without it coming out thanks to our current level of technology.

Eight Men Out.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

(09-20-2017, 04:22 PM)David Horn Wrote: Yeah, yeah, yeah: guns are the great equalizer. Of course, in a free-for-all economy, wealth always wins. Your guns? It's been tried. What good is a gun when the rich and powerful can openly hire a professional army. The Pinkerton Agency is a perfect example, having been formed in your ideal year of 1850.

One thing that I find interesting is the history of policing in the US. In the North at least, the origins of government policing began with groups like the Pinkerton Agency. Things have gotten so much better now that the politicians have an army funded with money stolen from the taxpayers to enforce their edicts, the will of The People be damned. The "legal" system is this side of worthless when it comes to any semblance of dealing with actual "crime" committed against other people. The only thing it excels at is extorting more money from The People when the do something horrific like drive at a velocity greater than that mandated by some stupid politician.

Ultimately, I would prefer that the US go back to its Night Watchman State origins. I would also agree that the justice system needs serious reform, I would highly recommend a return to common law which is the legal tradition of the United States as well as England and Wales.

As for things like the velocity at which motor vehicles can be operated and what someone can ingest recreation-ally, I think that should be left up to the states.

(09-22-2017, 03:28 PM)noway2 Wrote:

(09-21-2017, 10:01 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: Reality exists. The demagogue won, and he has showed himself behind an agenda that has the support of about 40% of the people. The now-dominant Party appeals to the worst in human nature -- mass vulgarity and superstition, and elite rapaciousness.

However inadequate, inconvenient, or unpopular it is, virtue merits cultivation. Surely you know the expression "pearls before swine"... we have marvelous technology and creative talent, and much of it is going to sordid ends.

Conservatives need to stand for something other than economic gain and mass folly (superstition, ignorance, and free-floating anger).

There is a very poor correlation between what a lot of "conservative" people believe, want, or stand for and what the so called "conservative" wing of the uni-party stand for.

I myself don't consider myself to be particularly "conservative". I hate both the Repugs and the Dims equally.

I'm not fan of the Neo-cons in the GOP or the Neo-libs in the Dimocrat party. That being said, I think I have more room to promote Civic Nationalism and Classical Liberalism (J.S. Mill style liberalism not psuedo-communism that the "progressives" push) in the GOP. It is unfortunate that I had to leave the Party of Jackson to accomplish that but such is life.

(09-22-2017, 05:09 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: 1. The only people who didn't expect Trump's victory were those who claimed he had no chance at winning. I had been watching him since the mid 00's, and since 2000 since he explored running with the Reform Party of Ross Perot fame. You know, people also said Reagan wouldn't ever be president either. And as much as I don't care much for Reagan he has to be the one President worth a damn in my lifetime whose name isn't Donald John Trump.

Reagan pitched ideas that have been proven wrong, and Trump is doing the same today. Errors self correct over time.

Kinser Wrote:2. That investigation is going to yield nothing, and the other party always investigates a president of the opposite party for something. Maybe you have short-term memory loss or something but there were plans afoot to investigate and impeach Bush II, and Obama, and Bill Clinton (who was impeached but nothing came of it). Sounds like business as usual to me on that front.

Three points here:

Bush got a pass, so let's let that one lie

Clinton was investigated for Whitewater but got nailed for a blow job. I suspect that there was a lot more to Clinton's sex life that had real meat to it, but a consensual blow job? Really?

Trump, on the other hand, has a trail of potential issues for a non-partisan prosecutor to follow, and expecting them all to lead nowhere is optimism at its finest.

Kinser Wrote:3. I you think he doesn't have a governing ideology then you've not been paying attention, or worse you've been swallowing whole all the nonsense that the lugenpresse puts out. Trump is governed by two things: American Civic Nationalism, pragmatism.

I can buy the nationalism meme to an extent, though it seems a lot more self serving than national. Pragmatism, on the other hand, devolves to wins and losses -- not an acceptable basis for a system of government, to borrow from Monty Python.

Kinser Wrote:As for 2020 I expect him winning in a landslide unless he's murdered. I'm far more concerned about the Deep State taking him out like they did with JFK. Fortunately it isn't 1963 anymore and they are less free to act without it coming out thanks to our current level of technology.

I don't see Trump lasting the entire 4 years as a more likely possibility, but he's more likely to get pushed out than murdered. As for 2020, don't count on Trump making even a decent showing, if he's even a candidate.

Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.

(09-21-2017, 09:28 AM)David Horn Wrote: Trump won an unexpected victory, is under investigation for collusion with an adversarial foreign power and has no governing philosophy I can discern. In what way is that a dominant position in the long term? That said, ,the Dems are splashing around and clueless, so we have no solid party at the moment.

Let's see how this plays out. I doubt 2018 will be a tide-turning event, so it's all about 2020.

1. The only people who didn't expect Trump's victory were those who claimed he had no chance at winning. I had been watching him since the mid 00's, and since 2000 since he explored running with the Reform Party of Ross Perot fame. You know, people also said Reagan wouldn't ever be president either. And as much as I don't care much for Reagan he has to be the one President worth a damn in my lifetime whose name isn't Donald John Trump.

The election itself is under investigation, and we may find how intense and effective the manipulation was. If we ended up with Donald Trump as the result of such manipulation, then we probably have a Republican majority in the Senate as the result.

Donald Trump is unlike any prior President for running as a demagogue. He more resembles Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in his techniques of getting elected than he resembles... well, Ronald Reagan. At least Ronald Reagan ran against a loud-mouth counterculture that Americans were getting sick of. Donald Trump ran against basic decencies.

Quote:2. That investigation is going to yield nothing, and the other party always investigates a president of the opposite party for something. Maybe you have short-term memory loss or something but there were plans afoot to investigate and impeach Bush II, and Obama, and Bill Clinton (who was impeached but nothing came of it). Sounds like business as usual to me on that front.

Sure it is going nowhere. Russian hacking (or attempted hacking) of the electoral process has been exposed. We are finding that people in the Trump Administration and campaign apparatus show signs of co-ordination. When you look at the activities of Paul Man-o'-Fraud... someone so bad so close to the President hardly gives evidence of integrity.

If you see this acceptable because your idol won, then just think of how things go in 2020 if China or even India tries to interfere in our political process. Both countries have excellent intelligence services, and they have their agendas. I assure you that you would not like it if the Democrats won big in 2020 with the aid of an agency of foreign intelligence.

Quote:3. I you think he doesn't have a governing ideology then you've not been paying attention, or worse you've been swallowing whole all the nonsense that the Lugenpresse puts out. Trump is governed by two things: American Civic Nationalism, pragmatism.

Glorification of the Leader. Government of the Master Class, by the Master Class, and for the Master Class. Vilification of Americans based upon ethnicity and religion. Promotion of visceral attitudes with little concern for consequences.

Quote:As for 2020 I expect him winning in a landslide unless he's murdered. I'm far more concerned about the Deep State taking him out like they did with JFK. Fortunately it isn't 1963 anymore and they are less free to act without it coming out thanks to our current level of technology.

He would have to reverse recent polling which has shown between 55% and 60% disapproval. (Yes it has improved for him a bit this week, I concede. But this said, we ordinarily expect people to outgrow the "double-dog-dare":

At least there are usually adults to rescue children from their reckless acceptance of dares. The adults are not in charge in the Trump Administration.

For all his faults, most notably failing to address mass poverty, President Obama at least didn't offer any "double-dog dares", let alone "triple-dog dares". By 2020 we will want the President most similar to Barack Obama in agenda and temperament.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

(09-25-2017, 11:32 AM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: Part of your delusion is that you believe the so called "Deep State" and not the Soviet Communists, using a "Communist Cuban" sympathizer, did it. Why did they do it? They did it because the Golitsyn defection and subsequent counter intel ops of Angleton happened under JFK's watch. JFK was a great Anti Communist, one of the best. Of course the Kremlin hated him. They loved seeing him die violently.

The JFK papers are scheduled to be released this year, 26th October to be precise, unless the President blocks it. And I can't think of a legitmate reason for him to. We'll see exactly how deluded I am.
I will say this though, I never bought the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald did it with the rifle he supposedly did it with, one the Italian Army literally blamed losing WW2 on because it was such garbage by their incredibly low standards, never mind the magical bullet.

(09-23-2017, 10:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The election itself is under investigation, and we may find how intense and effective the manipulation was.

We already know the primaries in that election was manipulated. But it wasn't manipulated by the Russians of all people, rather the DNC manipulated their own primary elections because they wanted HRC. Too bad that blew up in their face.

Quote:If we ended up with Donald Trump as the result of such manipulation,

IF, and it is a big if--as in so big as to be on the level of absurd, the Russians manipulated the election one thing they wouldn't do is manipulate it in favor of Donald Trump. HRC was guaranteed to cause economic and world wide chaos. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Trump is some sort of radical revolutionary when he is instead, like a proper Grey Champion, hearkening back to traditional Americana.

Quote:then we probably have a Republican majority in the Senate as the result.

The GOP holding the senate was a foregone conclusion. In case you haven't noticed the Dimocrat party has been sheding seats and governorship over the course of the past decade.

Quote:Donald Trump is unlike any prior President for running as a demagogue. He more resembles Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in his techniques of getting elected than he resembles... well, Ronald Reagan. At least Ronald Reagan ran against a loud-mouth counterculture that Americans were getting sick of. Donald Trump ran against basic decencies.

Unlike Haiti, the US has a long tradition of democratic institutions. As for the rest of this paragraph one man's demagogue is an other's truth teller. I will say this though, Trump like Regan ran against a loud mouth culture that Americans were getting sick of.

Quote:Sure it is going nowhere. Russian hacking (or attempted hacking) of the electoral process has been exposed.

Are you sure about that? The vast majority of voting systems in the US have paper back ups. What did the Russians do? Put mind control drugs into the water and some how trick Americans into voting for a Strong Military, Strong Economy Nationalist?

Quote:We are finding that people in the Trump Administration and campaign apparatus show signs of co-ordination. When you look at the activities of Paul Man-o'-Fraud... someone so bad so close to the President hardly gives evidence of integrity.

The special prosecutor can't find anything so they are now going after potential financial crimes, which could be as simple as clerical errors in preparing a tax form. There is no there there, which you would know if you Read drudge instead of watching MSDNC.

From what I can tell both you need to ask your doctor about Sovieta:

Alphabet could probably benefit from this drug too.

Quote:If you see this acceptable because your idol won, then just think of how things go in 2020 if China or even India tries to interfere in our political process.

You mean that China or India might buy some facebook ads like the Russians are accused of? I say let them. Personally I don't give a shit, provided that the voting systems are kept on old-tech paper the election is unhackable, unless you plan on telling me that the Chinese Air Force or something is spraying mind control chem trails.

Quote:Both countries have excellent intelligence services, and they have their agendas. I assure you that you would not like it if the Democrats won big in 2020 with the aid of an agency of foreign intelligence.

Since there is no evidence that any Russian involvement in the election was effective, assuming it actually happened (which the absence of evidence indicates it did not) I highly doubt that the Indians or Chinese would be as effective as the long practiced and highly competent FSB. As for China and India having their own agendas, well yeah, everyone has an agenda. What is your point, do you even have one or are you just busy running around chanting "Muh Russia" like Alphabet here.

Quote:Glorification of the Leader. Government of the Master Class, by the Master Class, and for the Master Class. Vilification of Americans based upon ethnicity and religion. Promotion of visceral attitudes with little concern for consequences.

Quote:He would have to reverse recent polling which has shown between 55% and 60% disapproval. (Yes it has improved for him a bit this week, I concede. But this said, we ordinarily expect people to outgrow the "double-dog-dare":

As I've said previously, polls without methodology is meaningless. Furthermore, national polls are also pretty much meaningless. In the Red States Daddy is seen as doing great and even the conservative democrats are starting to come round if they hadn't already. After all those same polls said it was impossible for the President to become the president.

Quote:For all his faults, most notably failing to address mass poverty, President Obama at least didn't offer any "double-dog dares", let alone "triple-dog dares". By 2020 we will want the President most similar to Barack Obama in agenda and temperament.

As someone who voted for Obama twice, you speak only for yourself. My main fear is that Obama did such a poor job as president that not only is he the first black president, he will also be the last black president, or at least the only black president for some time to come. I know you don't read the alternative media, or even leave your house (all that often, I assume you periodically must leave if only to go to the grocery) so I can understand that you don't realize that the left is in total collapse, but the last thing we need right now is a president like Barack Obama either in temperament (because Mitt Romney would do if it was just that) or in agenda (which means you might as well balkanize the country now and sell it piecemeal to the Europeans, Indians and Chinese).

(09-23-2017, 08:41 AM)David Horn Wrote: Reagan pitched ideas that have been proven wrong, and Trump is doing the same today. Errors self correct over time.

Errors do. Some of Reagan's ideas were dead wrong, some of them were right on target. There is a reason why I say that in my lifetime he was the one president that was half-way decent whose name wasn't Donald John Trump.

Quote:Three points here:

Bush got a pass, so let's let that one lie

Clinton was investigated for Whitewater but got nailed for a blow job. I suspect that there was a lot more to Clinton's sex life that had real meat to it, but a consensual blow job? Really?

Trump, on the other hand, has a trail of potential issues for a non-partisan prosecutor to follow, and expecting them all to lead nowhere is optimism at its finest.

I see your list and can answer all of them.

1. Bush got a pass because of 9-11. Had that not happened he wouldn't have had the political capital for invading Iraq or for being re-elected.
2. Doesn't ultimately matter. The fact is that every time the White House changes hands and the "opposition" party is in charge the Congress investigates the President and his entourage. I put the word opposition in hate quotes because when we're speaking of the Neo-con GOP establishment or the Neo-Lib Dimocrat establishment I consider them to be so close in ideology as to actually constitute one party, often referred to as the "uniparty". Noway has already referred to the uniparty once in this thread.
3. For all their investigating they can't nail the President on anything, and they've been after him since September 2015. This means one of two things is the case:
A. The President is extremely good at hiding evidence, OR
B. The President hasn't done anything criminal.

Occham's razor indicates that option B is the preferred option
.

Quote:I can buy the nationalism meme to an extent, though it seems a lot more self serving than national.

That is a matter of opinion. Obviously I disagree with you.

Quote: Pragmatism, on the other hand, devolves to wins and losses -- not an acceptable basis for a system of government, to borrow from Monty Python.

We already have a basis for a system of government steeped in Classical Liberalism, it just needs to be applied. That being said, devolving things down into wins and losses is an acceptable basis for governing, especially when you were elected to be the Negotiator in Chief.

Quote:I don't see Trump lasting the entire 4 years as a more likely possibility, but he's more likely to get pushed out than murdered. As for 2020, don't count on Trump making even a decent showing, if he's even a candidate.

1. Impeachment is extremely difficult to accomplish, they didn't even use it on good old Tricky Dick (who I not-so-strangely view as a very good President, even if he was as crooked as a dog's hind leg).
2. Pushing the President out by means other than impeachment means one of two things.
A. Making the country ungovernable to the point that he resigns in disgrace, OR
B. Finding something that the president has done that could lead to a successful impeachment (a la Richard Nixon) so that he resigns in disgrace to prevent the complete poisoning of the office of the Presidency.

Since investigations starting in 2015 have found nothing on Trump B is unlikely, and A would lead to a civil war, and being a 4T likely lead to a hardening of Trump's support base and an eventual total destruction of the opposition. In his day Lincoln was reviled but today he is revered, the same is true for FDR.
3. I would say that baring an assassination, the president not running for a second term would only happen if his health started to fail, which I think is unlikely. The man doesn't smoke or drink, and runs circles around people half his age.

We'll see about 2020, a day is a long time in politics, three years is nearly an eternity, I would say that provided the economy gets turned on (and we're headed for our second quarter of 3% growth in GDP), tax relief happens and there is a shovel turning on the wall the President will be re-elected no problem.

There being a war during his tenure improves his chances of re-election actually, especially if it is against the Norks.

(09-23-2017, 10:28 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The election itself is under investigation, and we may find how intense and effective the manipulation was.

We already know the primaries in that election was manipulated. But it wasn't manipulated by the Russians of all people, rather the DNC manipulated their own primary elections because they wanted HRC. Too bad that blew up in their face.

Neither clear not obvious, and possibly even counter-factual.

Quote:

Quote:If we ended up with Donald Trump as the result of such manipulation,

IF, and it is a big if--as in so big as to be on the level of absurd, the Russians manipulated the election one thing they wouldn't do is manipulate it in favor of Donald Trump. HRC was guaranteed to cause economic and world wide chaos. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that Trump is some sort of radical revolutionary when he is instead, like a proper Grey Champion, hearkening back to traditional Americana.

Yeah, sure -- a President in contempt withe the rule of law, and who has spite as a cornerstone of his policy.

Awful, awful, awful!

Quote:

Quote:then we probably have a Republican majority in the Senate as the result.

The GOP holding the senate was a foregone conclusion. In case you haven't noticed the (Democratic) party has been shedding seats and governorship over the course of the past decade.

Reversibility is reality in democratic political systems -- but not under tyrannical systems like those of fascist and commie regimes.

Quote:

Quote:Donald Trump is unlike any prior President for running as a demagogue. He more resembles Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier in his techniques of getting elected than he resembles... well, Ronald Reagan. At least Ronald Reagan ran against a loud-mouth counterculture that Americans were getting sick of. Donald Trump ran against basic decencies.

Unlike Haiti, the US has a long tradition of democratic institutions. As for the rest of this paragraph one man's demagogue is an other's truth teller. I will say this though, Trump like Reagan ran against a loud mouth culture that Americans were getting sick of.

This election has shown that the age of a democratic tradition is no defense of democracy in a country in which many voters are pigs before whom pearls are cast.

Quote:

Quote:Sure it is going nowhere. Russian hacking (or attempted hacking) of the electoral process has been exposed.

Are you sure about that? The vast majority of voting systems in the US have paper back ups. What did the Russians do? Put mind control drugs into the water and some how trick Americans into voting for a Strong Military, Strong Economy Nationalist?

In Michigan, the hackers may have gotten into the campaign apparatus of the Democrats, altering voter files so that Democratic efforts to turn out Clinton voters reached would-be Trump voters instead.

Quote:

Quote:We are finding that people in the Trump Administration and campaign apparatus show signs of co-ordination. When you look at the activities of Paul Man-o'-Fraud... someone so bad so close to the President hardly gives evidence of integrity.

The special prosecutor can't find anything so they are now going after potential financial crimes, which could be as simple as clerical errors in preparing a tax form. There is no there there, which you would know if you Read drudge instead of watching MSDNC.

Or money laundering.

Quote:

Quote:If you see this acceptable because your idol won, then just think of how things go in 2020 if China or even India tries to interfere in our political process.

You mean that China or India might buy some facebook ads like the Russians are accused of? I say let them. Personally I don't give a shit, provided that the voting systems are kept on old-tech paper the election is unhackable, unless you plan on telling me that the Chinese Air Force or something is spraying mind control chem trails.

I don't want the electoral winner of my choosing winning with the aid of a foreign power, let alone due to collusion with a foreign power.

Quote:

Quote:Both countries have excellent intelligence services, and they have their agendas. I assure you that you would not like it if the Democrats won big in 2020 with the aid of an agency of foreign intelligence.

Since there is no evidence that any Russian involvement in the election was effective, assuming it actually happened (which the absence of evidence indicates it did not) I highly doubt that the Indians or Chinese would be as effective as the long practiced and highly competent FSB. As for China and India having their own agendas, well yeah, everyone has an agenda. What is your point, do you even have one or are you just busy running around chanting "Muh Russia" like Alphabet here.

Standard operating procedure by the Soviet Union in attempts to overthrow democratic systems (usually fledgling, or shaky after fascist times) is to sponsor politicians servile to the Soviet Union (in the 1940s, hard-line Stalinists), deluded fellow-travelers (Zdenek Fierlinger in Czechoslovakia, István Dobi in Hungary), or (if that is all that is available) politicians with severe faults of incompetence, corruption, or cruelty likely to create trouble for his own Party. Scandals? Provoking mass protests? Social rot? Economic hardship?

Well, Trump is incompetent, corrupt, and cruel, is he not?

I do not hate Russia. Russia has a glorious history of science and culture. I think the Russian language well worth the effort to learn.

Quote:Glorification of the Leader. Government of the Master Class, by the Master Class, and for the Master Class. Vilification of Americans based upon ethnicity and religion. Promotion of visceral attitudes with little concern for consequences.

Quote:You mean like how the Dims are openly praising Kim Jong-Un now?

Garbled even beyond your usual standard.

Quote:

Quote:He would have to reverse recent polling which has shown between 55% and 60% disapproval. (Yes it has improved for him a bit this week, I concede. But this said, we ordinarily expect people to outgrow the "double-dog-dare":

As I've said previously, polls without methodology is meaningless. Furthermore, national polls are also pretty much meaningless. In the Red States Daddy is seen as doing great and even the conservative democrats are starting to come round if they hadn't already. After all those same polls said it was impossible for the President to become the president.

Yes, yes, yes. Almost every politician who ends up losing disparages the polls that show him behind the leader who eventually wins. Usually that disparagement of the polls fails. But Trump win, and, well, America is not as good a place to live as it was when Obama was president.

Quote:

Quote:For all his faults, most notably failing to address mass poverty, President Obama at least didn't offer any "double-dog dares", let alone "triple-dog dares". By 2020 we will want the President most similar to Barack Obama in agenda and temperament.

As someone who voted for Obama twice, you speak only for yourself. My main fear is that Obama did such a poor job as president that not only is he the first black president, he will also be the last black president, or at least the only black president for some time to come. I know you don't read the alternative media, or even leave your house (all that often, I assume you periodically must leave if only to go to the grocery) so I can understand that you don't realize that the left is in total collapse, but the last thing we need right now is a president like Barack Obama either in temperament (because Mitt Romney would do if it was just that) or in agenda (which means you might as well balkanize the country now and sell it piecemeal to the Europeans, Indians and Chinese).

No. The problem with Barack Obama and his inability to force Americans to confront mass poverty is that as a black man he might have been seen as using welfare as a sort of political patronage. I voted for Edwards in the 2008 primary because I knew that Obama could never get away with an aggressive campaign against mass poverty.

Last black President? Miscegenation will expand the black population if natural growth from families with black husbands and wives does not.

The Left is hardly monolithic. I can see different strands. I find Marxist analysis useful (if with my own modifications); for example, I see the post-scarcity society as something that Marx predicted first; he called it Communism. Paradoxically it may be capitalism that achieves Communism, and not the state-controlled Marxist-Leninist model.

We will need a President very different from Donald Judas Trump if we are to get a sane, workable government again.
We need someone with respect for the rule of law. We need someone free of personal corruption and has an agenda mature enough to avoid actions out of spite. We need someone with a moral compass. That could be a Lincoln-like or FDR-like Boomer. The second choice is a mature Reactive like Cleveland, Eisenhower, or Obama.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense. As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence." This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire. Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going. Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it. I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense. As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence." This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire. Trump is an effect not a cause.

I concur that Donald Trump is an effect even more than a cause. I see part of the cause in the degradation of university education, at least at the undergraduate level, from an institution with the objective of improving the student to either an advanced vocational school or a jump-start into a graduate school as a watered-down grad school. The great universities were intended to impart knowledge that leaders needed and that the proles did not need. To put it crudely, the proles could get away with being the 'great unwashed masses" because they were never going to lead anything.

I would revert to the Great Books to impart the needful knowledge that people needed before setting foot in the seminary, medical school, law school, grad school, engineering school, teaching program, or business school. If you speak of the business school, then consider that every accountant learns how to lie, cheat, and steal; the accountant must be inoculated from the idea that lying, cheating, and stealing are out of the question for himself. The Great Books give an insight into the complexity of human behavior as no dry social study can show. (One would get one's knowledge of psychology largely from Freud, who clearly wrote some of the Great Books on the subject).

Teaching? In view of the snares of mass culture, the K-12 teacher needs to know that there is better music than the fad of the day; the latest hit can never surpass Bach's Art of Fugue, Mozart's Divertimento for String Trio K.563, Carmen, or the Rondo-Finale of Mahler's fifth symphony; that the late 1930s and early 1940s are known as the Golden Age of American Cinema even without the expensive and stunning special effects that we largely take for granted except for a sort of arms war between directors and film studios in creating those effects; that there is literature worth knowing even for children; and the importance of choosing right over wrong even when such is inconvenient. That goes beyond pedagogy, and I could make the case that someone with a solid liberal arts education could learn the fundamentals of pedagogy in a 90-day wonder course.

Notice that I took two of the most common occupations (accountancy and public-school teaching) as examples. But what of the rest of us? Donald Trump had a strong appeal to people with less than a college education unless those people had some reason (ethnicity or religion) to distrust him. People who recognized him as an anti-intellectual demagogue could laugh at him. They are now sickened as he shows the folly of electing demagogues.

Quote:The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going. Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it. I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

To deal with the rise of oil as a commodity and the shift of the USA from an exporter of petroleum to an importer, Nixon made his deal: oil would be sold in dollars, in return for the oil-exporting states to buy their imports in dollars. Dollars would represent the wealth that oil-producing states took in and spent on everything from luxury imports to insurance to defensive weapons (the latter subsidized if the country, like the Iran of Shah Reza Pahlavi -- whoops! -- would remain friendly to American economic and political interests). Oil-rich states would buy Mercedes-Benz cars, Sony electronics, or Unilever household goods with US dollars and not Deutschmarks, yen, or pounds sterling. Even the international drug traffickers use US dollars.

China now seems to be doing much the same with exports of consumer products as Saudi Arabia did with oil. But drop the dollar as a world currency, and we Americans get a severe inflation along with whatever other distress is then happening.

Quote:"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

Even if one uses the flawed stages of history of Marx (Marx oversimplifies it, especially in ignoring technological change), the transition to the Information Age from the Manufacturing Age will not be easy. Jobs will disappear before new jobs replace them, and transforming coal miners into software engineers while attracting software development companies from Silicon Valley to eastern Kentucky will be tricky. The high-earners of any age need to be where the resources are or, when resources matter little, where the attractions are.

This said, I understand that western classical music is extremely well received in Japan and South Korea... and I, who have no connection to Japan, love the visual esthetic of Japanese fine art. Is American mass low culture an adaptation to the debased politics and education in America? Maybe.

As for Trump -- to ensure that someone like him never becomes our horrid leader, we need inoculate ourselves against the demagogue. The solution to a racist, bigoted, insensitive right-wing demagogue is not a left-wing demagogue. A nation that can elect a Donald Judas Trump can also elect a Hugo Chavez.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote: ... While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

This is true but incomplete. It describes the establishment of a culture but ignores its decline into something else. For example, the culture of Appalachia was built on resentment of the British upper class, and continues with resentment of the American upper class as they see it. It was viable at one time in the not too distant past. It's dying now. What replaces it, if anything, is still TBD.

The same scenario is playing-out in the Rust Belt. Though the initial state was different, the dynamics are much the same. DJT tapped that to get elected, but that is far from a solution to their problems ... one of which is the rapid departure of their children and arrival of new immigrants. A new culture may emerge or the present culture may succeed in driving the new arrivals away and decaying into insignificance.

Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote: The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going. Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it. I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

To deal with the rise of oil as a commodity and the shift of the USA from an exporter of petroleum to an importer, Nixon made his deal: oil would be sold in dollars, in return for the oil-exporting states to buy their imports in dollars. Dollars would represent the wealth that oil-producing states took in and spent on everything from luxury imports to insurance to defensive weapons (the latter subsidized if the country, like the Iran of Shah Reza Pahlavi -- whoops! -- would remain friendly to American economic and political interests). Oil-rich states would buy Mercedes-Benz cars, Sony electronics, or Unilever household goods with US dollars and not Deutschmarks, yen, or pounds sterling. Even the international drug traffickers use US dollars.

You are overlooking a very important detail in all of this. You would do well to remember that in 1971 France was about to redeem its dollars for gold. In a very real sense this repudiation of Bretton-Woods was a default on the, by current standards tiny, debt the US government had incurred fighting the Vietnam War and the War on Poverty. By getting Saudi Arabia to convince OPEC to only sell oil for dollars he created the mechanism by which the US has been exporting inflation to this day.

This also explains why the US government always goes so easy on Saudi Arabia no matter what they do but it also explains why Trump suddenly gives a shit about Venezuela since not long ago they decided not to accept dollars as payment for oil. This was a reaction to US sanctions but it still represents a step on the road to the dollar not being world reserve currency. It wouldn't be a surprise if the NSA learned of plans to take this step first and so as a result the sanctions came first as a consequence.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises

(10-05-2017, 05:21 AM)Galen Wrote: ... While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

This is true but incomplete. It describes the establishment of a culture but ignores its decline into something else. For example, the culture of Appalachia was built on resentment of the British upper class, and continues with resentment of the American upper class as they see it. It was viable at one time in the not too distant past. It's dying now. What replaces it, if anything, is still TBD.

The same scenario is playing-out in the Rust Belt. Though the initial state was different, the dynamics are much the same. DJT tapped that to get elected, but that is far from a solution to their problems ... one of which is the rapid departure of their children and arrival of new immigrants. A new culture may emerge or the present culture may succeed in driving the new arrivals away and decaying into insignificance.

A cycle of demagoguery and disappointment suggests the potential for wild swings in political affiliation among masses of voters. A hollow left-wing demagogue could be just as horrible as Donald Trump. and that is exactly what Donald Trump could be setting up. I need not offer a name. Anyone who suggested in 2012 that Donald Trump could be President in 2017 would have heard such a question as "What drugs are you taking?"

Wild swings of ideology more likely lead to political harshness of one kind (isn't it great to see all those liberal elitists gnashing their teeth?) to its antithesis (isn't it great to see all those right-wingers gnashing their teeth?) than to efficacy in solving the problems that people have -- like job losses, inflation, and declining wages.

Your observation of Appalachia (and the Ozarks, which are hard to distinguish from Appalachia not only by similar topography) has its elucidation in Albion's Seed. People settled in Appalachia because they could get away not only from the British ruling class but also other settlers who had their own habits brought over from Britain. They were definitely not Puritans who expected people to respect the intellect. They disliked the Quakers who sought to deliver dissimilar people disembarking in Philadelphia to Quaker standards of piety. They disliked the hierarchy of the Tidewater Cavaliers who would have tried to tame the Scots-Irish through exploitative toil. Getting past the first line of mountains got them beyond the authority of people who would repress or regulate them and enforce an unwelcome assimilation. But this is built into an old culture.

It is ironic, but Appalachia became pro-Union during the Civil War. Armies generally avoid mountainous areas unless they find the people hospitable, but this explains why there were so many battles in eastern Tennessee. Eastern Tennessee (basically Appalachia) opposed the politics of Tennessee in which the planters of western Tennessee sought to use the Mountain folk as cannon fodder for defending slavery. It's not that the Mountain Folk had any high principles against slavery; they hated the slaves. They hated the slave-owners even more.

The Rust Belt and its industries attracted people from Appalachia. The auto, steel, rubber (tires, largely), and glass industries of Detroit, Flint, Toledo, and Dayton offered good steady pay to people who may have been poor and proud -- but undeniably material. So people in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky got some easy-to-follow advice: take US 21, 23, 25, or 27 north until you see lots of smokestacks. That's where the pay is. Good pay. But they seem to have kept their culture and their political ways intact. Trump told the descendants of Mountain Folk who moved to Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania exactly what they wanted to hear. He might realize their hatreds, but he cannot solve their economic distress.

At this stage of the Crisis we are finding the rifts where earthquakes strike (but we cannot see which rift will break) and the magma chambers over-ripe for eruption. We will have earthquakes and perhaps even a volcanic eruption.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

At this point even the normal financial press is starting to realize what the dollar losing reserve currency status means for the US. The unipolar world that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union is coming to a close as the US empire fades.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises

(10-07-2017, 09:02 PM)Galen Wrote: At this point even the normal financial press is starting to realize what the dollar losing reserve currency status means for the US. The unipolar world that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union is coming to a close as the US empire fades.

Basic needs get meet first, let there be a revolution. I have been re-reading Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in which (among much else) Piketty discusses much -- including the economic conditions in France on the eve of the 1789 Revolution. Land rents were a gigantic share of the economy, and when the social order broke down the land rents that had been easy money for an aristocratic elite were no longer sustainable.

The United States is approaching the extreme inequality characteristic of fascist societies, plantation societies, feudal orders, and pure kleptocracies. Such was clearly not so in the 1950s. In the 1950s, the top ten percent of income-earners included people in the middle class, like engineers, salesmen, accountants, and high-school teachers. Much of the top 1% was physicians and attorneys. That is over. The top 10% now gets its money from property as rents, dividends, and executive compensation.

The easy money is the least important. Toil, skill, and learning create real wealth. I don't know how surprising it is that software engineers in Silicon Valley are often paying half their income as property rents. It's not out of love for renting a mansion that they do so; I speak of apartments. Note well that software engineers are among the best-paid Americans who make their money off skill, learning, imagination, or toil. Easy money is particularly vulnerable in the wake of revolutions, plagues, economic meltdowns, and apocalyptic wars. All societies need toil, imagination, skill, and learning to meet basic needs. A privileged class is not so obviously necessary.

It is far easier to put an end to a gravy train than to starve and sweat the needed workers. So imagine that this is what an old and distinguished city like Boston or Philadelphia looks like after a military calamity:

(That is Warsaw in 1945, showing what sort of devastation is possible without atom bombs... things could be even worse).

Now what do you do first as the leader of a country -- rebuild the palaces of aristocrats and plutocrats for the use of those people, or rebuild the food-processing plants? Do you pay construction workers or shareholders first?

We well compensate people for grabbing and controlling wealth more than we do those who create it. That could change abruptly.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

The DNC itself openly admits to having manipulated their own primaries. So either they are lying for no clear purpose, or the truth has somehow accidentally leaked out. Since I don't believe in coincidence, the latter seems more likely.

Quote:Yeah, sure -- a President in contempt withe the rule of law, and who has spite as a cornerstone of his policy.

Awful, awful, awful!

There is much to be contemptuous of, however the rule of law is not one of them, and certainly not the President. But considering that we just endured 8 years of near dictatatorial rule under Obama undoing his executive orders through executive orders may seem that way.

Quote:Reversibility is reality in democratic political systems -- but not under tyrannical systems like those of fascist and commie regimes.

And then according to you which system do we have? The maths look good for the GOP to hold congress and the White House even with a failing president, and the President isn't failing. Quite literally under Obama the Dimocratic party has been hollowed out--as should be expected when they lost over 1000 seats in the House, Senate, State Legislatures and Governorships.

The last time the GOP was this strong was in 1921. This shift is sismic and likely to be more or less permanent for our purposes unless the Dimocratic party gets its shit together PDQ and there is no indication that they are. Instead Daddy's playing Pulosi and Chucky Schumer for the fools they are.

Quote:[quote]
This election has shown that the age of a democratic tradition is no defense of democracy in a country in which many voters are pigs before whom pearls are cast.

Careful PBR your snobbery is showing. And snobbery has a tendency of losing leftists seats. Espcieally if they are aging hippie boomer douche leftists. It also doesn't work so well for the Millie spawn either.

Quote:In Michigan, the hackers may have gotten into the campaign apparatus of the Democrats, altering voter files so that Democratic efforts to turn out Clinton voters reached would-be Trump voters instead.

Unlikely. But suffice it say, if true, then this indicates that were the Russians (or anyone else for that matter) able to "hack" the election they would be more likely to want HRC because she would be more or less predictable where as Trump was not indeed is not.

I can't speak for Michigan, but in Florida our ballots are done by paper. So unless Vladimir Putin somehow sprayed mind control chemicals my state went to Daddy more or less fairly.

Quote:Or money laundering.

Or it could be a clerical error. Money laundering is rather difficult to prove, but easy to suspect. After all there are theories going about that the Las Vagas suspect was using the casinos to launder money.

Quote:I don't want the electoral winner of my choosing winning with the aid of a foreign power, let alone due to collusion with a foreign power.

Then explain why you voted for Clinton who was massively funded by the Saudis, Qataris among others.

Quote:Standard operating procedure by the Soviet Union in attempts to overthrow democratic systems (usually fledgling, or shaky after fascist times) is to sponsor politicians servile to the Soviet Union (in the 1940s, hard-line Stalinists), deluded fellow-travelers (Zdenek Fierlinger in Czechoslovakia, István Dobi in Hungary), or (if that is all that is available) politicians with severe faults of incompetence, corruption, or cruelty likely to create trouble for his own Party. Scandals? Provoking mass protests? Social rot? Economic hardship?

Well the US is hardly a fledgling democracy since we've been one since 1789. Like people after a certain point countries have to be grown up and quit blaming everything on the previous regime.

The US is not now, nor ever has been under a fascist regime unless one plans on accusing Obama of being a fascist, but that goes against your narrative.

Trump is certainly not a fellow traveler with anyone. Not Putin, not Xi, not Abe, not Merkle, and not May. He seeks to work with other world leaders where he can, and go his own way when he can't, AS IS RIGHT AN APPROPRIATE FOR THE LEADER OF A SOVEREIGN STATE.

Quote:Well, Trump is incompetent, corrupt, and cruel, is he not?

Incompetent, maybe--but it wasn't like there were better options. Corrupt, not at all--or at least not more so than is standard fare for DC. Cruel not at all, he's allowed people to live in Trump tower rent free for extended periods of time.

Do you know who is known to be all three? HRC. Her foreign policy was an unmitigated disaster as Secretary of State. She is known for corruption with the Clinton Foundation being a known and open slush fund for herself and her husband. And what person who isn't cruel openly jokes about getting off an obviously guilty client who was accused of child rape?

Quote:I do not hate Russia. Russia has a glorious history of science and culture. I think the Russian language well worth the effort to learn.

Then why continue with the "Muh Russia" rhetoric? Surely you can see for yourself how it makes you appear to be a lunatic. Seriously save the lunacy for those who are more experienced in it.

Quote:

Kinser Wrote:Glorification of the Leader. Government of the Master Class, by the Master Class, and for the Master Class. Vilification of Americans based upon ethnicity and religion. Promotion of visceral attitudes with little concern for consequences.
[quote]
You mean like how the Dims are openly praising Kim Jong-Un now?

Garbled even beyond your usual standard.

No it isn't. The Democrats have been praising Mr. Kim "standing up" to big-bad Trump. But that isn't all that surprising really. Since the 1960s the left's mantra has been all things America bad, all things red/commie/pinko good. Or are you too interested in signaling your virtue than listening to your попутчик.

Quote:Yes, yes, yes. Almost every politician who ends up losing disparages the polls that show him behind the leader who eventually wins. Usually that disparagement of the polls fails. But Trump win, and, well, America is not as good a place to live as it was when Obama was president.

Two problems with this line of argument:
1. Trump won thus the polls being wrong just made the talking heads appear to be the fools that they are. I think a great deal of the problem was massive over sampling of democrats, particularly boomer democrats who seemed most prone to vote for HRC while around 40% of Bernie's people went to Trump because they hated him less.
2. You are right, America is not as good a place to live as when Obama was President--it is exponentially much better. The unemployment rate is at 16 year lows and the work force participation rate has crept into the high 60s.

Quote:No. The problem with Barack Obama and his inability to force Americans to confront mass poverty is that as a black man he might have been seen as using welfare as a sort of political patronage.

Dead wrong. Most welfare recipients are white, more over most of them are white women. That being said, welfare is, and always has been a form of political patronage. Obama's skin color wasn't a factor unless it perhaps was for you--which tells us much more about your world views.

Quote:I voted for Edwards in the 2008 primary because I knew that Obama could never get away with an aggressive campaign against mass poverty.

Edwards wouldn't have been successful either. We've tried having a welfare state, what is the result? More poverty than ever. More children in poverty than ever. The destruction of the family life of those communities most prone to poverty, especially racial minorities.

The best way to address mass poverty is full employment. That can only be achieved through sound trade policy and a refusal to import more labor than is absolutely necessary--and maybe not even then.

Quote:Last black President? Miscegenation will expand the black population if natural growth from families with black husbands and wives does not.

The Black population is not rising faster than the white population. Indeed blacks are on par with non-hispanic whites in that area. The fastest growing segment of the population is Latino hispanics. As I said he will be the last black president for sometime to come. After all since JFK there hasn't been a Catholic president again, and there are far more Catholics, regardless of race, than there are blacks.

Quote:The Left is hardly monolithic

When you're done slaying that straw man I have a windmill you can tilt at too.

Quote:I can see different strands. I find Marxist analysis useful (if with my own modifications);

I spent much of my life as a card carrying Marxist-Leninist. I would say your understanding of Marx is elementary at best, and any modifications you may have proposed to his works is likely to be of the ultra-left variety, which as Lenin noted was an infantile disorder. Maybe the fact you've read the Manifesto (not even his most important work) impresses your empty headed academic friends (and who am I kidding, you don't have friends) but it doesn't impress me in the slightest. I have toenail clippings with greater ideological understanding of the works of the Five Classics (Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Hoxha) than you.

Most of what of the left that remains Marxist is a small scattering of MLs and Maoists with a whole host of Trotskite, Browderite, and Frankfortite revisionist scum. At the best of times they can be used as useful idiots, but the material conditions for a Marxist-Leninist revolution do not exist in this country and have not existed for quite some time if they have ever existed.

Quote:for example, I see the post-scarcity society as something that Marx predicted first; he called it Communism. Paradoxically it may be capitalism that achieves Communism, and not the state-controlled Marxist-Leninist model.

Capitalism is capable of delivering a post-scarcity society. In order for this to be achieved state regulation must be at a minimum to allow the profit motive to push the drive for more, cheaper, better.

Quote:We will need a President very different from Donald Judas Trump if we are to get a sane, workable government again.

The government that governs best, governs least. Personally I love seeing the federal government being essentially non-functional. It means that the constitution is working as designed. Far more power should be in the hands of the states as the US is and always has been a federation rather than a unitary republic. We are at our best when the states take the foreground.

Quote:We need someone with respect for the rule of law.

We have that already unless you're prepared to point out where exactly Trump has pushed for something that actually is unconstitutional and not just unconstitutional when he does it like the 9th circuit seems to believe is acceptable reason to block lawful prerogatives of the executive branch.

Quote:We need someone free of personal corruption and has an agenda mature enough to avoid actions out of spite.

No one is free of personal corruption. Not me, not you, and certainly not any of the swamp things from the Democratic Party--especially not the Clintons. As for agendas being enacted out of spite, well just about every leader we've ever had has hat at least a measure of that. Unfortunately since angels are not available, we must be governed by men.

Quote: We need someone with a moral compass. That could be a Lincoln-like or FDR-like Boomer. The second choice is a mature Reactive like Cleveland, Eisenhower, or Obama.

Personally I don't think a Lincoln is in the Boomers and the last thing we need is an FDR since many of his policies are the reason we're in this mess to start with.

As I said before, I think Obama was pre-seasonal. Like many in 08 I was hoping he was going to be Tyrone from down the block and be more along the lines of "listen mother fucker this the way it gonna be" instead of President Steve Urkle. Also quite honestly putting him in league with Grover Cleveland is insulting to that man, never mind Eisenhower. I don't expect the reactive president you seek to appear until after the 1T starts.

(10-07-2017, 09:02 PM)Galen Wrote: At this point even the normal financial press is starting to realize what the dollar losing reserve currency status means for the US. The unipolar world that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union is coming to a close as the US empire fades.

Basic needs get meet first, let there be a revolution. I have been re-reading Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in which (among much else) Piketty discusses much -- including the economic conditions in France on the eve of the 1789 Revolution. Land rents were a gigantic share of the economy, and when the social order broke down the land rents that had been easy money for an aristocratic elite were no longer sustainable.

Piketty is an idiot socialist without a clue. If the crony capitalism caused by the feds usurping power the Constitution does not end then things will get very ugly. The Dims won't do it but the R's might if it allows them to survive. The Dims seem to be pretty self-destructive these days.

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. -- H.L. Mencken

If one rejects laissez faire on account of man's fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action. -- Ludwig von Mises

(10-07-2017, 09:02 PM)Galen Wrote: At this point even the normal financial press is starting to realize what the dollar losing reserve currency status means for the US. The unipolar world that started with the collapse of the Soviet Union is coming to a close as the US empire fades.

Basic needs get meet first, let there be a revolution. I have been re-reading Piketty's Capital in the 21st Century in which (among much else) Piketty discusses much -- including the economic conditions in France on the eve of the 1789 Revolution. Land rents were a gigantic share of the economy, and when the social order broke down the land rents that had been easy money for an aristocratic elite were no longer sustainable.

Piketty is an idiot socialist without a clue. If the crony capitalism caused by the feds usurping power the Constitution does not end then things will get very ugly. The Dims won't do it but the R's might if it allows them to survive. The (Democrats -- insult redacted) seem to be pretty self-destructive these days.

Nothing says that an intellectual can't be terribly wrong. There is no question that Lev Trotsky, Josef Goebbels, and Ted "Unabom" Kaczynski were brilliant people. Intellectual power behind the person making the argument is not proof of the validity of what someone says. Furthermore, someone discussing topics outside of his area of expertise (I would never dispute Noam Chomsky on linguistics, but he is fair game on politics) is not an authority.

Economics is full of value judgments. If slavery were still in existence there would be economists developing sophisticated arguments to establish how essential it is to the prosperity of the rest of humanity. As it is, economists fit every position in the political spectrum except Nazism and Ku Kluxism.

Piketty is a socialist. He is not an "idiot" socialist as you might believe as a redundancy. If anything it seems to be Republicans who have made unambiguous steps toward tyranny, this time of a neo-feudal character in which 95% of the people are obliged to suffer for the untrammeled indulgence of 2% of the people. If the elites are more diverse than the rural landlords who formed the economic elite of pre-industrial, ancien regime France (we have big corporate farms squeezing out the old yeoman farmer that once defined rural America, capitalists and financiers, big urban landlords like Donald Trump, sell-out intellectuals such as lobbyists and corporate attorneys, administrative elites, and organized crime) we are getting severe inequality that can bring great suffering -- especially if the elites choose to damn everyone else to poverty.

Maybe I am reading things into Piketty that he would not endorse. I am not convi9nced that economic elites are better than the rest of us. They can simply get away with much more.

But let us not forget -- Donald Trump has intensified the crony capitalism that has entered on little cat feet and now charges like a tiger with Donald Trump as President. Donald Trump is no reformer; he is the most corrupt pol that we have ever endured. We may be headed for revolutionary changes, whether as the result of a proletarian revolution or the sorts of reforms that foreigners like Clay in Germany or MacArthur in Japan impose upon a nation in defeat after going very bad and trying to impose their evil on others. We could also have a depression of the sort that we had in the 1930s, and that makes the economic elites irrelevant and unsustainable and make America much more humane and humanistic.

The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.

(09-15-2017, 03:43 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: The degradation of American democracy has happened in stages, and the election of Donald Trump could be the start of the last stage. Could be. My most optimistic hope is that America reverts to its old pattern of a liberal-conservative divide in which quality matters more in politics than does ideology.

The problem the US empire faces is the changing logic violence where projecting power is becoming harder relative to defense. As James Dale Davidson have said, "The most important causes of change are not to be found in political manifestos or in the pronouncements of dead economists, but in the hidden factors that alter the boundaries where power is exercised. Often, subtle changes in climate, topography, microbes, and technology alter the logic of violence." This is what is shaping the demise of the nation-state and the US empire. Trump is an effect not a cause.

The petrodollar is what has been keeping the US empire going since 1973 and the middle east wars of the last sixteen years are part of an effort to keep it going. Once the petrodollar goes down, which looks like it will happen in the next five to ten years, then the US empire goes down with it. I suggest you read the following two articles which describe the current state fo the empire as well as anything I have seen recently.

While the next quote from James Dale Davidson will annoy most of you hear it contains much truth and you would do well to contemplate it. The cultural equivalence that the SJW crowd believes in is completely absurd.

"Cultures are not matters of taste but systems of adaptation to specific circumstances that may prove irrelevant or even counterproductive in other settings."

-James Dale Davidson, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.

The US empire existed for a quarter century before the petrodollar. Ultimately it's based on geography - the US geographic position on both of the world's major oceans. There's every likelihood that the US could find a way to keep the empire going for the rest of the century, should it so choose.